COLT – Certificate in Online Tutoring – Reflection 1

This summer I’m delving deeper into two very different areas – Teaching Chinese and Online Tutoring. Both of these courses are exciting for very different reasons – and if you can understand basic Chinese – which is all I can say (!) – then check out recent posts labelled 瑞娜说中文 and 对外汉语.

The online course comes courtesy of International House, the school I did my CELTA with in London, way back when. I don’t want to give away too much – but here are my key take-aways and reflections on the first of four modules:

What I learnt

First impressions count – make access and use of online tools as easy and simple as possible

Use the same features within an online course to help students familiarise themselves quickly with the environment

Spend time on getting to know you activities to build rapport between students, reduce any possible anxiety and create a positive working atmosphere.

Provide clear information about how to get support (I.T. and content-related)

Make expectations clear (how to complete task ‘x’ and why that skill would be useful in the future)

Feedback is important, to ensure students are on track, to help those that are not, and highlight areas of the course/tasks that may need to be adapted in future.

Make tasks fun and enjoyable. Throw in something unexpected to engage students.

My Reflections

It looks like a lot of organisation is involved. No doubt it’s best to plan it all out first, before the initial set-up of any online course/collection of activities. (This sounds obvious, but I have a tendancy to dive-in, without looking, or in this case, without extensive planning!).

It’s all about time. I think that I would have to set everything up over the summer, now, so that it would run smoothly over the academic year. I think it may be too ambitious to set-up an entire course that runs exactly parallel with the content of my textbook. I think it more realisitic to begin to introduce a few alternative, ‘extra’, activities to them, in random intervals, and reflect on how effective they are, instead. I don’t think my students have much exposure to online learning, so I think a softly, softly approach would be best.

One would assume that online learners are quite motivated and independent, but like I said, my students will be quite new to this, and will require a lot of support in simply accessing and navigating a tool in another language. More support, means more time, more clear instructions, and more patience!

In a nutshell, online tutoring looks attractive from afar, all shiny and new, but on closer inspection there’s a lot of planning and organisation involved, in order for it to actually be successful!